ISS 14 EVA 8
Published on Feb 9, 2007 at 1:59 pm.
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Filed under NASA, space exploration, space station.
Lost in the news about astronaut personal lives was a bit of news of a NASA milestone. The International Space Station Expedition 14 crew performed EVA 8, the latest in a series of spacewalks to do maintenance on the space station. A little before 8:30am, Michael Lopez-Alegria, the space station commander, and Sunita Williams exited the Quest airlock on a spacewalk that was to last over six and a half hours. The Quest Joint Airlock Module had been delivered to the ISS by the shuttle Atlantis in 2001. Prior to that time, American astronauts could only perform spacewalks from the Space Shuttle while it was docked to the space station. The Quest permits the ISS astronauts to do EVAs without a shuttle being present. The ISS does have another airlock, but it is designed only to support the Russian spacewalk hardware. The Quest is also preferable in that it is designed to waste the least amount of gas on each cycling.
This EVA, the 80th in support of the ISS, had several objectives. Thermal shrouds were removed from two motor controllers. These shrouds, which had provided thermal stability, are no longer needed under current station operations, and are in fact a potential hazard in that they might now hold in too much heat. So, they were removed and tossed overboard. They are like lightweight blankets, and they’ll readily burn up upon reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. The astronauts then made preparations for a cargo module to be attached during a future shuttle mission, and then they connected up power cables that will allow future space shuttles to run off of power from the ISS rather than solely on their own internal power when docked. That will permit the shuttles to stay docked to the space station for much longer periods of time when needed.
Most of this seems to be routine EVA type activity for the ISS. What makes this spacewalk a milestone is that it was the ninth spacewalk for Michael Lopez-Alegria, tying the record for the most spacewalks held by astronaut Jerry Ross, whose last mission into space was on STS-110 in 2002. During that mission, Ross had performed two EVA’s in support of ISS construction. Ross accumulated 58 hours and 18 minutes of extravehicular activities during those nine spacewalks, which had been the record for American astronauts. That record has now been broken. Lopez-Alegria’s last EVA brought his total extravehicular activity time to 61 hours 22 minutes, a new American record. But, Lopez-Alegria still has a long way to go to match the all time EVA record held by cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyov, who reportedly has accumulated about 82 hours over 16 spacewalks.
-Astroprof
